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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Bridgehead not very Satisfactory

This morning I decieded to go on an adventure on Elgin Street before starting my morning. I headed down to Bridgehead (282 Elgin Street, Ottawa) for a morning coffee. I normally enjoy Bridgehead coffee and have reviewed two other of Bridghead's locations (Metcalfe & Sparks and Bank & Albert). So I figured I would be in for a treat.

I entered the coffee shop to find one person in line but a Barista ready to serve me.

I previewed the baked goods investigating to see what kind of muffin I would want. Normally Bridgehead doesn't have a whole bunch of types of muffins to choose from like Tim Hortons, but does has at least three to choose from. Not this time, the only muffin there was the Pumpkin Spice Muffin. I have a general rule of thumb about baked goods at coffee shops involving pumpkin. It is fine from mid September to very early November to enjoy those products in Canada. (Aside: Pumpkin products later if your American because Thanksgiving, for whatever reason, falls in late November). This is because usually bakeries fire up their pumpkin making recipe fueled machines and turn out item upon item of fresh pumpkin goodness. The items you see at end of November usually are the Pumpkin items they a) made to much of and have been sitting for a while or b) someone thought "hey these sold well, let's make some more" and then after Halloween sales dove. Thus, I normally stay away from the Pumpkin products at this time of year as they are probably stale dry forms of what they used to be.

Without any other options and the customer ahead of me served, I stepped forward and gave my order.

The Order: 1 Medium Sized Medium Blend Coffee.

I exchanged my money for a freshly poured cup of coffee.

I put my gloves on and headed out the door for a walk bound for downtown.

A couple steps up the street I took a sip and stopped. Was my tongue fooling me? Nah, couldn't be, must be the cold temerperature outside and the warmth stunning it. I tried another sip, yup, not really good coffee. It tasted stronger than usual with a slight burnt taste to it. I slowly walked up the street hoping the coffee would get better, no luck. This was probably the worst coffee I had from Bridgehead ever. Not that the coffee was old gas station percolating since last night coffee either, this was just Bridgehead slightly off coffee. I will probably return to this location again to give them the "hey we had an off day, please return so we can reattempt" type of courtesy visit.

Overall this Bridgehead location may have dissapointed a little bit for not living up to their standards for coffee, but this location does have other things going for it. Based on Elgin Street in an area filled with bars, this location does have a hidden patio running paralell to the MacLaren Street sidewalk. The patio appears to be quite a slightly shady spot to enjoy a coffee on a nice summers day after work or just before hitting the nearby pubs and bars for dinner. I will ensure to retry this location again as Bridgehead, courtesy of their Twitter feed, have announced they have changed the recipe for their Triple Berry Muffins to include Oatmeal and so far the replies on Twitter have been positive. Hopefully the Elgin Street location will decide to stock the new Oatmeal Triple Berry muffins and pull up their socks on the coffee as well.